Public input period to run until August

--Press Release--

For Immediate Release

County Recorder Adrian Fontes announces 2017 reprecincting project

Public input period to run until August

Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes announced the public input period for new precinct lines today in a Facebook Live.

The public input period will run until August 15, 2017. The lines then must be approved by the Board of Supervisors.

Reprecincting often occurs after each federal general election. The last time Maricopa redrew precincts was in 2012. The purpose for this process is to best allocate voting and polling place resources for upcoming elections.

"After looking at extended polling place wait times and voter registration totals in 2016, with expert insight from our GIS team, I decided it was necessary for us to look to even out precincts across the county to improve voter experience in 2018," said Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes.

The number of voting precincts has fluctuated over the years. After the 1999 reprecincting, there were 1,004 precincts; after the 2005 reprecincting, there were 1,142 precincts. In 2011, the current 724 voting precincts were created; lessened because of the creation of the permanent early voting list in 2006.

In the current 724 voting precincts within Maricopa County, some have fewer than 30 voters and some have more than 13,000 voters. There are reasons for the large variance including where the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission drew the Congressional and Legislative district boundaries after the last decennial census as well as the high growth in different parts of the county over the past few years.

The goals (where practicable) for voting precinct reprecincting are:

Between 4,000 and 5,000 voters in each voting precinct.

2,000 or less voters within each voting precinct who have not signed up for the permanent early voting list.

Minimizing the number of potential ballot styles for each precinct. This is accomplished by having as few jurisdictional district types (cities, school districts, fire districts, etc…) as possible in each precinct.